Following Along
by Abh
Summary: A young Rogue sets out on her own into the World, however she finds that life as an Adventurer isn't as easy as it seems and joins up with a Veteran Paladin and a foul mouthed Dwarf Hunter to learn the ropes. better than it sounds first fic! please read!


The crisp wind from the coastline blew through the silvery forest trees that lead right up to the sandy beach, The wind was turning cold for autum and the first frosts would be setting in soon, and while the change in seasons may have meant something to the farmers and gathering parties in town, the shift in climate didn't matter in the least to Nudge.

Still sitting in her tree, waiting for her target to pass over the small bridge spanning what could only be called a trickle of a stream, she needed to ambush a message carrier for a Horde syndicate without letting them know she was there... she went up into the this God forsaken tree three days ago just to be sure that she didn't miss the messenger, in case he came by earlier than her information told her, he would. However... it was two days past the expected interception date, she was starting to think that her information was false. So here she was... waiting... for some punk who kept her waiting two days longer than it should have taken to complete a simple assignment.

She craned her head slightly to look at the forest around her, the pine trees were tall and strong, hiding the abundant wildlife that seemed to occupy every inch of the forest floor. She found herself peering down at a sickly looking deer, it was a doe, and it looked exremely thin and was staggering around as if it was in a daze, walking but not really going anywhere, it was dying. She felt some pity for sad creature, she knew that it probibly wouldn't last another night with the cold weather approching, she concitered making a mercy killing for the poor animal and sighed as she weighted the choice in her mind.

As if on cue she saw a shifty looking Undead skulking through the undergrowth of the forest, her silver eyes narrowed as she focused on the Undead. He looked, like most undead, like a corpse that had been badly abused, what could have been his abdomen was torn away leaving stray bits of tattered dry flesh hanging over an exposed ribcage his face was gaunt and to her surprise she noticed that he was missing the lower part of his jaw, so his tonuge was lolling side to side unhindered. What stood out thought was the red satchel he was carrying. He was holding it close and looking around with frantic eyes, Nudge grinned as he passed under her tree without noticing her.

She slid silently out of the tree and fell nearly thirty feet to the forest floor without making a sound. She slowly crept up behind him, she could smell the scent of his recent death, when she was close enough to reach the sachel he whirled around to her horror and thrust a gloved fist out towards her head.

Nudge fell backwards with a yelp and saw the Undead yelling something in Orcish at her, then he drew a sword and started to charge her, his first blow clanged off one of her raised daggers, causing her to stagger backwards for a moment. His decayed muscles could still pack a punch after being reanimated and strenghtened with undeath. She recovered her balance just in time to duck another lunge from the massive weapon, this was going badly for her, she knew that, but in her current position she could really do much about it. He aimed for her feet and swung a mighty arc towards her ankles she jumped backwards only to feel the feeling of hard pine tree bark to her back. He gave what could only be assumed to be a grin from his twisted mockary of a mouth and aimed one last strike at her head.

The blade halted mid-strike, making a wooshing noise as it was stopped by what could only be called a bubble of Light that was surrounding her. They were both transfixed by the phenomanon that neither one noticed the armor clad man stroll up beside them. Nudge noticed him first, he was a human, odd to see but certianly not a rarity around these parts, who was of slender build for his race, shorter than her, but not by much, from what she could tell he may have even been able to trick people into thinking he was elven.

The Undead finally snapped out of his trance on the protective bubble, that was beginning to fade around Nudge, and noticed the newcomer, he yelled out a battle cry and rushed the stranger, completly forgetting about Nudge...

That bothered her a bit.

However she couldn't seem to will her legs to move at all. So she stood there still trying to piece together what had happened just now...

The man was still standing still, unmoving as the Undead charged him, that was until the Undead was toppled over by what seemed to be a hammer made of light. She got it now. the man was a Paladin, she had never seen one in person before, but she had heard stories of the mysterious warriors that called on the Light as their weapon. The people who healed the sick, and fought for justice, she felt empowered just being near him, and all her previous worries were put at ease in an instant.

He could handle this.

The undead attempted to stand, and if he was unable or just didn't move quick enough was never discovered because as soon as he twiched, the Paladin was on him in a second and crushed what was left of the messenger's face with a massive, glowing hammer.

She stood there, dumbstruck, but regained her composure and knew that edicate dictated that she thank her savior.

However...

She stormed up to the man poking him hard in the chest, which only served to hurt her finger because of the plated armor, but she wasn't willing to show him that. "Why did you do that! I had him right where I wanted him, I have been waiting here for three days for that lousy corpse just so I could get a hold of that stupid bag and you..." she stopped, not because she was finished, but because the Holy Warrior in front of her raised an armored hand and placed a metal finger to her lips, bowed and walked away...

Three times, in the past few minutes one man had left her speechless, something that, until today, had never happened before. She felt she owed him something, "My name is Nudge by the way!" she yelled towards his retreating back, he raised a hand and waved, without turning to face her, but she heard in her head, as if he had whispered right into her ear, "A pleasure Nudge, my name in Dalanas."

She shook her head, unwilling to let him stun her a fourth time that day, and picked up the red bag she needed to complete her mission. She turned toward the direction of the town, the same way the Paladin went, but thought better of it, Three days was a long time to go without a bath. She grinned, the streams were sure to be cold this time of year.

It didn't take very long to find a small stream far enough away from the road that she could use for bathing, she walked over to he bank of the stream and put her hand in, it was freezing... she began rethinking this whole icy dip idea, but her pride wouldn't allow her to return to the town looking and smelling like she had be in a tree for three days.

She detached the two sleek daggers from her thick leather belt and put them within easy reach, they were her most important tools, aside from maybe her lockpick and her wits. she peeled off the skin-tight leathers and threw them helter-skelter around the small bank, and slowly eased herself into the chilly water.

The icy chill brought back memories of her recent graduation from her rouge school in Darnassus, she couldn't help but remember her cold weather training, stuck on a fridged mountaintop with nothing but her daggers and a single thin wool blanket for one week. It wasn't easy training to be a rouge, most of her classmates quit after the first practical exam, others were kicked out, and an unlucky few died in training. It wasn't an easy life that they decided to undertake. They were told that the day the started the training, but Nudge knew that she was prepared to do anyhing that was asked of her, this was her dream ever since she was a little kid, her parents dissaproved of her vocation though, her mother was well known Alchemist and her father was one of the highest ranking members of the Cenarion Circle, but dispite their wishes she still decided to follow her dream.

After she had soaked long enough to become boarderline hypothermic, she crawled out of the ice water and tried to start a small fire, but the sun was going down earlier each day and daylight hours were getting much shorter with the comming winter months, so finding firewood had become quite a challenge, she cursed at her own stupidity, if she had any forsight she would have collected the firewood before she got in the water, now here she was stumbleing around soaking wet, half naked in the freezing forest. "I am such an idoit." she sighed, "what would my teachers think if they saw me now?" she knew exactly what would happen they would do what ever they could to prevent her from finding firewood, or any source of warmth until she was minutes away from freezing to death, just so she wouldn't forget the lesson again.

After gathering what she assumed to be enough for a small fire she went back to her little clearing. After cleaning her leathers and drying off she decided to check on the red satchel that she suffered over the last three days for, she reached through the dark to where she had put it only, to her horror, to find it was missing from its resting place. She sprang up and ran over to the fire and lit a torch to help her look, to her dismay the red bag was not in the camp anymore, but surrounding the ground where she put the bag she saw something that made her heart sink further. Panther tracks.

Nudge had grabbed all her gear and rushed to follow the tracks before the cat got too far away from her, she wished she paid closer attention in her tracking classes, she was ok at it but her real strenght rested in poison brewing, a talent she attributed to her mother. she followed the tracks for a bit farther east leading towards the natural mountain barrier, it was dotted with caves and high cliffs, and to a rouge whose mind was always on amushes, it wasn't really a place Nudge wanted to be. The tracks led to a cave, and judging from the sounds inside, to cat that took her bag was inside too.

Now as a rouge Nudge had no problems killing people. But to her animals were different they didn't really know any better and were just trying to survive themselves, it was one of the only lectures from her father that sunk in, she wished now that she had paid more attention to her mom and dad, but they were both busy doing things for the Alliance right now and she couldn't bring herself to bother them. Her mind set on just getting the bag and getting out without hurting the panther, she slowly crept in, sneaking up on animals, cats in perticuliar, was quite difficult so she picked her steps carefully through the den. it was actually quite a shallow cave no more that twenty feet back and eight wide. It seemed cozy in a, no other choice kinda way.

She could hear and see everything that was going on in the cave now. There were two cats one black panther and another that looked like a desert cat, with tan fur and oddly enough a coller, she then saw why a stout male dwaft with a large rifle was standing beside the desert cat. He yelled something in dwarvish and the cats charged each other. Nudge's eyes went to the black panther, it looked pretty beaten down, but that isn't what she was looking at, behind its back feet she saw her parcel! her heart lept, and she momentarily forgot where she was until she she was startled by a loud gunshot. The black panther was dead, in one shot right between the eyes, clearly the dwarf was a master hunter, the desert cat walked over to its master, it was a funny sight seeing them stand side by side. The cat while not really a giant was at eye level with the dwarf and licked his face. The dwaft sputtered and grabbed the cat in a headlock and with one gauntleted fist ground his knuckles on the cats head, laughing. Nugde had seen the bond between a Hunter and pet before but it really astounded her how such a short man could be so casual with a mountain lion. She had to chuckle a bit... and that gave her away.

Instantly the cat was on guard and the Dwarf had is rifle leveled at her chest, seconds ticked by and the cat let out a low growl, time seemed to stand still for Nudge she was terrifed again she had seen the Hunters accuacy with her own eyes and knew that turning to run would be a mistake. Another few moments passed and the Dwarf lowered his rifle.

"What do you want little elf" he spoke in Common. Nudge knew Common along with Darnassian most Night Elves did however, a stubborn few refused to learn the language out of some odd hope that the Night Elves could go back to being an Isolated race. Nudge sighed in relief, the Dwarf was a member of the Alliance forces otherwise he may have just shot her, Night Elves and Dwarves were still suspisious of each other even after years of coexistance. "I...um..." she couldn't think of how to explain any of this to him. "I need that, its mine" she settled on she pointing at the red bag, not quite the most elegant explaination, but it would do. The Dwarf looked at the bag and at her again. "Well fuck that then. It's mine now." He walked over to pick it up, Nudge moved to stop him, but the cat blocked her way. "Wait, please I need that for a job, I had to wait three days in a tree for it, you can't just take it!" she felt like crying this whole job had sucked so far, waiting in a tree for three days, nearly dying to an Undead, being saved by a Human and now the whole mission was about to be called a failure because of some foul mouthed Dwarf. "Don't you think you should give it to her Brother, she did work quite hard for it, and you clearly don't need it." they both whirled around, standing at the caves entrance was that same Paladin from earlier. "Hiya Dal, no I suppose your right." The Dwarf walked over the her and handed her the bag. "Please forgive the language, earlier, it is just so hard to find a drink out here." he grinned at her and made a motion like he was drinking a mug of beer. "My name's Bloodshackle by the way, and that there is Calico" he said indicating the cat. "I love her something fierce but she is kind of a pain sometimes." the cat growled and Bloodshackle laughed. He turned to Dalanas, "So what are you doing here anyway Brother? I thought you had a job over in Outland." Nudge's jaw dropped. She had heard hundreds of stories about the Orc's homeland, and one of her fondest wishes was to go and fight the Burning Legion's hordes out there, she just didn't have the experience. "I did, and I finished just this morning, I knew you were out around these parts and figured we could grab a bite before we both head back to the frontlines." Nudge was clearly forgotten, that bothered her. "THANKS FOR THE HELP YOU TWO." she spoke up nearly yelling at the two. Dalanas remain composed, maybe even smiling underneath his helmet, Bloodshackle on the other hand, "YOUR WELCOME MISSY ANYTIME" he returned clapping her hard on the back. "I am Nudge by the way." she said resuming normal volume levels. "Are you returning Auberdine by any chance?" Dalanas said, not using that crazy mindspeak "If so we would be happy for the company if you were to join us." She was heading that way, it was still dark out and she really didn't want to spend another night in the woods. "Sure I would be happy to come, and maybe you can tell me some stories about Outland..." she said hopfully. Bloodshackle looked at her wryly. "Who told you we've been to Outland." Dalanas rolled his eyes. "Forgive my Brother sometimes, he forgets things."

The three started heading back to Auberdine, four if you counted Calico, listening to Bloodshackle tell his stories of conquest in Outland. "And o'course I wasn't about to let some Blood Elf pansy get away with that so when he started all that magic mumbo jumbo I just shot him, it is alot easier, I don't see why we waste our time with magic now that we have guns" Bloodshackle clearly looked at Dalanas. "And all that scraping and praying just so you can master the Light, Brother? I never knew where you got the patience." Dalanas let out a chuckle. "Patience, dear Brother, is the reason I can wield the Light and you cannot. If you recall that one time in Westfall, where you had a bit too much Thunderbrew Lager and started proclaiming you mastered the Light as well, only to later find out you spent 4 hours playing with lightning bugs." Nudge burst out laughing, she could imagine the short dwarf running around in a field chasing bugs swearing that they were magic. Bloodshackle turned to her, "Ya think thats funny do ya? I got a few stories about ol' Dal over there from when we were kids that he might not want to get out, he wasn't all proper all the time ya know." Dalanas seemed to shift slightly, it seemed there was some truth in the dwarfs statment after all. "If you don't mind me asking" Nudge spoke up. "how exactly are you two brothers, I mean, I don't see to much family resmeblence."

"Haha yeah, I see how that gets confusing my dear" Blood shook his head. "The easiest way to put it is that Dal here is adopted." Dalanas turn to face his "brother." "Thats simplifying it a bit isn't?"


End file.
